Friday, February 1, 2013

Revised CFB Opening Week TV Guesses

EDIT: 2/2/13 - I'm taking a mulligan on New Mexico St. at Texas.  The change is listed below.

You will probably ask yourself "Why does this look so different from what you published in December?". Well, the Pac-12 & C-USA schedules were announced, four conferences changed membership for 2013-14, some schools completed their non-conference schedules and overall it tightened up the matchups for the opening week.

I'll look over weeks two (9/7) & three (9/14) after the ACC & Big East schedules are announced.  There's enough holes in those two where conference games can fit in.  Same w/the Mountain West, although they've stated that their schedule might not come out until April.

Notes
* It sounds like Ole Miss-Vanderbilt will be one of the Thursday night opening games, instead of UNC-South Carolina.
* I split the Rutgers-Fresno St. and USC-Hawai'i games onto different networks  With both games out west, in the case of Hawai'i far out west, it doesn't lend itself well to a doubleheader.  Yes, its possible that USC-Hawai'i could end up on ESPN as part of a package of games sold to them from the Mountain West.
* I went with Utah St.-Utah as the 2nd half of the ESPN doubleheader.
* Someone is going to have to bite the bullet like FOX did and take a FCS vs. Pac-12 matchup when they took Portland St. vs. Washington for an F/X game.  This year ESPNU gets that honor.
* Georgia-Clemson deserves its own slot without being regional or a reverse mirror option.
* I'm making an assumption that the Pac-12 Network will jump up and take one of the three available games between FBS teams
* I moved the Oklahoma St.-Mississippi St. game played at Reliant Stadium to Sunday to fit it in.  I don't think it has the requirement that the Chick-Fil-A Kickoff and Cowboys Classsic games where they are currently tied to primetime on ABC or ESPN.
* The final weekend of NFL preseason games could affect date/time of some of these games.  Not necessarily in places where stadiums are shared either.  A school like Cincinnati could have their opener's date affected based on when the Bengals close their preseason, if they are at home that week.
* I don't know what the ESPN will do for a primetime game on Labor Day.  It is supposed to be an ACC game.  Every ACC team is scheduled to play out of conference, so some games need to be moved around.  It is possible ESPN will consider another conference's game(s).  Five ACC teams currently do not have a game set for 9/7 and could move their FCS opener to that date leaving 8/31 open (Boston College, Florida St., Georgia Tech, Pittsburgh & Wake Forest).  Whether the FCS team has the ability to move the game to another date is another story.

Thursday
7pm ESPN: Ole Miss at Vanderbilt
7:30pm Big East: Towson at Connecticut
8pm BTN: UNLV at Minnesota
9pm CBSSN: Rutgers at Fresno St.
10:15pm ESPN: Utah St. at Utah
11pm NBCSN: USC at Hawai'i

Friday
8pm ESPN: Purdue at Cincinnati
10pm Pac-12: Northern Arizona at Arizona

Saturday

12pm ESPN: Penn St. vs. Syracuse
12pm ESPN2: Central Michigan at Michigan
12pm ESPNU: BYU at Virginia
12pm BTN: Indiana St. at Indiana
12pm BTN: Western Michigan at Michigan St.
12pm FOX Sports 1: UL-Monroe at Oklahoma
12pm CBSSN: Morgan St. at Army
12pm SEC Network: UL-Lafayette at Arkansas
12:30pm ACC Network: Louisiana Tech at NC State
3pm ACC RSN: FAU at Miami (FL)
3pm Pac-12: Eastern Washington at Oregon St.
3:30pm NBC: Temple at Notre Dame
3:30pm ABC: Georgia at Clemson
3:30pm ESPN2: Buffalo at Ohio St.
3:30pm ESPNU: Washington St. at Auburn
3:30pm CBSSN: Miami (OH) at Marshall
3:30pm BTN: Wyoming at Nebraska
3:30pm BTN: Southern Illinois at Illinois
4pm FOX Sports 1: Northwestern at California
4:30pm ESPN: North Carolina at South Carolina
6pm PPV: Austin Peay at Tennessee
7pm ESPNU: Rice at Texas A&M
7pm SEC/FOX RSNs: Toledo at Florida
7pm FSMidwest: North Dakota St. at Kansas St.
7pm ROOT Sports: William & Mary at West Virginia
7pm PPV: Murray St. at Missouri
7:30pm FOX: Nevada at UCLA
8pm ABC: Virginia Tech vs. Alabama
8pm ESPN: LSU vs. TCU
8pm CBSSN: Colorado vs. Colorado St.
8pm BTN: Massachusetts at Wisconsin
8pm BTN: Northern Illinois at Iowa
8pm Longhorn: New Mexico St. at Texas
8pm CyclonesTV: Northern Iowa at Iowa St.
10pm Pac-12: Boise St. at Washington
10:30pm ESPNU: Nicholls St. at Oregon

Sunday
3:30pm ESPN: Oklahoma St. vs. Mississippi St.
7:30pm FSN: New Mexico St. at Texas

Monday
4pm ESPN: Texas Tech at SMU

ESPN3 Exclusives (all on Saturdays unless noted)
FIU at Maryland
Stony Brook at Boston College
Wofford at Florida St.
Elon at Georgia Tech
McNeese St at USF
Southern at Houston
Ohio at Louisville
Kentucky vs. Western Kentucky
Akron at UCF (Thursday)
NC Central at Duke
Presbyterian at Wake Forest

4 comments:

bigddan11 said...

I could be wrong, but I'm going to say that New Mexico State/ Texas will end up on Longhorn Network and remain where it is currently scheduled- August 31. It should be obvious why that will be the Longhorn Network game when you look at their non-conference schedule. New Mexico State, at BYU, Ole Miss. Ole Miss is coming off of a banner year, so that game is very likely to be an ESPN or ESPNU game. The game at BYU is guaranteed to be on ESPN Networks or BYUtv. If ESPN lets BYUtv air it, then I suspect Longhorn Network will simulcast it, but I honestly see it being on ESPN or ESPN2 after the meeting in 2010. So that leaves New Mexico State, which will be the game that airs as Texas's 3rd tier-right game on Longhorn Network.

I'm also going to go out on a limb and say that Fox Sports 2 and Fox College Sports both will house some exclusive games this season. Fox College Sports is very likely to simulcast the 3rd tier right games for the Big XII schools they have contracts for (Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, Baylor, Texas Tech, TCU, Kansas State, and West Virginia) as well as other schools that have contracts with them (Northern Arizona and the NEC being a couple), and while Fox Sports 1 may take over the FX games, there's no reason that they wouldn't want to put games on Fox Sports 2 as well, which should mean more increased exposure for the FSMG conferences.

Matt Sarzyniak said...

I'm with you on the New Mexico St.-Texas game. Wasn't thinking about the rest of the Longhorns non-conference schedule. Taking a mulligan on that one.

I would expect Fox College Sports to again simulcast any of those Big 12 institutional games that either FSSW or FSMW can pick up. WVU just sold its multimedia rights to IMG College, which could continue to sell them to ROOT Sports or a local broadcaster. But the WVU game would not likely be on FCS if its sold to ROOT.

http://dailymail.com/Sports/201301240050

I'll be interested to see just how FOX reprograms SPEED and FUEL into FS1 and FS2 for college football. Maybe the FOX College Sports exclusives move to FS2 like a set of C-USA games outside of the 20 that FSMG contracts for and a handful of Big 12 games. SPEED is set to televise a couple NASCAR Truck Series races on Saturday nights in October. FS1 or FS2 will also have some UFC programming and a live event or two on Saturdays as well, so they'll have to fit those in.

Anonymous said...

Re: Nicholls St-Oregon game. Are you sure that ESPN has the rights to air Pac-12 football games on ESPNU? I think they don't. I think they can only air Pac-12 hoops on ESPNU.

Matt Sarzyniak said...

MJB, they do have the ability to air up to four football games a year on ESPNU. Last year ESPNU aired two Pac-12 games. Opening weekend with Toledo at Arizona, then in mid-November when Utah hosted Arizona.

http://mattsarzsports.com/football2012/Pac12